A break through with Tracie...

We had attachment therapy this morning and just talked about how everything was going. How my MOm got us the book by Nancy Thomas about parenting techniques for the parents of children with RAD (something like that anyway...I'm too lazy to look for the exact wording right now) and how I put 4 pages of techniques up in the kitchen for all the common behaviors that we deal with and a couple reminders for us too about things. The kids have been getting angry at some things (she said that's good...they're learning that they don't have the control), coming forth with good behaviors a little more frequently, and we talked about how Josiah was now taking Kapvay and has been MUCH more calm and behaving better. She said today was the first day that she's seen him where it seemed like he actually acknowledged that we were going to go discuss something and that it even pertained to him, so she sees that as a great medication change. We talked about how I get upset sometimes that Tracie when she first came to us would not let me leave her sight without screaming and how it took me a couple of years to get her to understand that I wasn't leaving her. Now, she's almost the exact opposite...won't hold eye contact with me, will glom on to anyone else, but it's almost like I have to force her to cuddle or if I try to take her hand she fidgets with my hands to try and make me let go. She brought Tracie in by herself and took her hands and Tracie did the same thing with her and then started fidgeting with her clothes. She asked Tracie what she was feeling and she half giggled and started pulling away. The Dr. kept a hold of her and held her eye contact and finally she started half giggling/half crying. The dr. pulled out her feelings chart and asked Tracie to point to how she was feeling. She pointed to the happy face. The dr. told her that she was seeing the shy and scared face at different times. She wanted me to take over the exercise with her and I got the same reponse from Tracie at first and kept asking her what she was feeling. Finally, she wrapped her arms around my neck and started to fullly cry and said "I just want you." I pulled her up on my lap and hugged her and rocked her and the dr. told her. Mommy is your safe place. When you get scared or feeling shy and need your happy back, you go cuddle up with Mommy. That's your Mommy and she won't let anything happen to you. I think it got across and she wouldn't let go of me for a long time. The dr. told me that she sees a little girl who desperately wants to let her walls down and let me in, but she can't quite yet. Even when Josiah and Emily joined us, Tracie didn't want down from my lap. When the kids went to investigate the toys that Melina had been playing with too, Tracie was the last to join them. Dr. says that she just wants to soak up all the love that she can. It was a good breakthrough and it made me feel a lot better about things too. This was also the first time that we had brought Melina with us. Dr. told Andy and I that we make good babies. We had a talk about how Melina has taught us a lot about the attachment cycle and in a lot of ways she's a lot further than the other kids. Dr. says that Melina has already got self-regulation figured out whereas the other 3 don't have that down yet and she knew when she got hurt to come to one of us for a hug and reassurance whereas the others are struggling there too. It was a good appt and it gave me hope. I love my kids. Andy even got a little choked up in the elevator about me and Tracie, although he covers it up by laughing. I'm so glad that we have this dr helping us. She's so understanding and has really helped us a lot so far.

Martin Luther King Day through Josiah's eyes

We were doing some educational stuff about Martin Luther King and they had a coloring page they were doing. As they were coloring, I was reading to them about the life of MLK and his speech that he made.

Reading about MLK..."I have a dream today...that one day...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers"...

Josiah says "Mommy, I already have that."

Oh to see things through the eyes of babes. Precious!

New Years Resolutions

I'm not making any major ones...I want to get back to Bible Study which I did this past Saturday...we worked on the commandment of Christ to Honor Marriage and it was a blessing to me. Met some new girls and it's nice to sit with gals who you can share Christ and faith with.

I'd like to get my health back on track and make sure that I drink my 8 glasses of water daily.

And I'd like to get my 3 mile walk in a min of 3 times a week.

I'd like to work on my prayer life a whole lot more and see where God takes me this year. :-) I need to give my personal goals to Him and let Him take the reigns...not my will, but His will be done.

A bad seed

Deidra's been a friend of a girl who has 3 other sisters for a long time. She friended all of them, but she was closest to their younger girl (we'll just call her Said Girl). Deidra met Said Girl when we moved into this neighborhood when Deidra was in 1st grade. Said Girl was in 2nd. Said Girl was her best friend for a couple of years although she was in one grade higher than her. We never had a problem until said girl failed a grade and then Deidra became almost like competition and with some of the things that she would say to me at times, I could see that she was jealous of Deidra for some things. She would pit the girls against her at school and she would refuse to let them play with her and Deidra would come home crying and saying that she didn't have any friends. A few days later, they would be friends again, but the cycle went off and on like that all year. I told her that real friends don't treat their friends like that. She'd keep her distance from her for awhile and then said girl would start being really nice and Deidra would give her another chance.

Well, lately she's had to copy Deidra at everything that she does. It drives Deidra crazy, but I always told her that some people just feel the need to do that and to take it as a form of flattery. Anyway, there's been some drama this year, and when it came to her birthday party she didn't even want to invite Said Girl and when Said Girl invited her to her birthday party, Deidra didn't want to go. However, she changed her mind trying to be a good friend and went anyway. A girl moved to the neighborhood a couple of years ago and all this drama was always happenign between the 3 of them (we'll call her New Girl). I gave the New Girl a bad rap and told Deidra that it was all due to her and that she didn't need to be playing with girls like that who said bad things about her and so forth. For a long time she stayed away from her, but the things that Said Girl would say that New Girl said about her all of the time really hurt Deidra. Anyway, Deidra has stayed friends with Said Girl's older sister and she's been putting distance between herself and Said Girl, although she wouldn't go into a whole lot of reasons with me anymore about why.

She's friends with a few other people in the neighborhood and she's been trying to spend more time with them, but she went down to Said Girl's house yesterday to talk to her older sister and she wound up calling and asking to spend the night. We said that was ok. A couple hours later, her Dad brought her back to the house saying that there's been some drama with the girls and until they can get it sorted out, he was makign the girls go home. Deidra was in tears and spent the next half an hour crying to us about all that had gone on. Apparently New Girl was spending the night down there too with Said Girl and she had gotten sent home too. We put the little kids to bed and came downstairs still trying to console her when there was a knock at the door. It was New Girl and her Mom. New Girl was crying too. They wanted to know if Deidra could spend the night over there and we started talking. New Girl's Mom had taken all that Said Girl had said and had pinned Deidra as having a bad rap over the years and here I had taken some of the going's on and given New Girl as having the bad rap...something happened yesterday and it all came out. Said Girl has been spreading lies about everyone else so that she can get all the glory as being an awesome friend. She didn't want her friends having any other friends and so she was spreading lies about every one else behind their back and telling the girls that lies were being told about them, but that it was the other girls saying things. Deidra said that another little girl in the neighborhood won't even talking to her anymore (she was just here for D's birthday in Nov) because she thinks she's a liar. Deidra started crying again and said that it's all due to Said Girl. I don't know whether to go talk to her Mom or not as her Mom is a nurse in our doctor's office and we talk whenever we go in there and her younger daughter is a friend of my Emma's too. I've known that Said Girl has a not so nice side and anytime I've talked to her Mom about stuff, she's always taken Deidra's side as she knows how Said Girl can be. I just didn't realize that it had gotten THIS bad. I told her last night that I don't want her going down there anymore, even if it is to hang out with her older sister. Her older sister is more than welcome to come down here if she wants to and they can talk on the phone too, but no more going down there. I'm putting my foot down now as my Deidra doesn't need to be treated like that. Newer Girl's Mom told me she had told her daughter the same thing. I woke up a few times in the middle of the night thinking about it. I'm almost considering going to talk to Deidra's other friend's Mom's in the neighborhood to try to clear Deidra's name and to let them know that Said Girl is bad news and to keep their daughter's away from her as Said Girl lies about them too. And the next time I hear of the lies being spread at school, I just may take this to the guidance counselor. I'm pretty disappointed...It's one of those things where I wanted Deidra to learn to fight her own battles and so I stayed out of it. I just never had imagined that the problem had gotten this big until last night. I feel so bad for my Deidra. She's one of those people, just like I am, where she puts other people's feelings before her own, and she just wanted to be a good friend. Now that I know all of this, I'm going to help her stand firm in putting distance between herself and this girl. Nobody needs a friend like that that can't stand people being friends with anyone else and is going to sabotage friendships over being that jealous. Wow!! I had a friend that tried to do that to me as an adult and it was incredibly draining. I had to deal with phone calls from other friends asking me questions all the time, because she was telling them that I had this going on and that going on and didn't need them bothering me all of the time, yet she would try to swoop in and be the one to rescue me or whatever all of the time. Once, I finally figured out what was happening, she was surprised when I called her out on it and we pretty much stopped being friends because of it. That was hard on me as well, but I'm going to help Deidra firmly close the door on this friendship now...at least for a long while...who knew 5th grade girls could be THIS mean??

New Girl's Mom let me read a text that she got from Said Girl yesterday too and I was completely in shock that she thought it was ok to talk to an adult like that. It just drove the stake in further...I don't want her around Deidra anymore. New Girl's Mom told me some of the lies that New Girl has been hearing as well and I just found one of them laughable. Deidra invited New Girl to her bday party long before she invited Said Girl. She wasn't going to invite Said Girl at all, but I told her that if she was going to invite Said Girl's older sister, that I thought it was only fair of her to invite Said Girl too. Trying to nice, she finally did. After the party, Said Girl went back to New Girl and said "did you know that Deidra didn't even want to invite you to her birthday party and wasn't going to?" New Girl's Mom said "that's bs as Deidra brought the invitation down here." She was surprised when Deidra said "it's Said Girl that I wasn't going to invite, but my Mom didn't think I was being fair." If I knew back then, that it had gotten this bad, I would have supported her in her decision. I just can't believe all the lies that have been put out there and so forth. Said Girl has some issues that she's going to have to work though, that's all I'm going to say. Wow!!

Lord, I ask that you bring some GOOD STRONG faith girls into Deidra's life that she can share true friendship with and help her to weed out those girls from her life that don't have her best interests at heart and just want to cause problems for her. Thank you, dear Lord. Help Deidra work through all of this and give her your peace and comfort. Amen.